University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE FIRST.

Timoleon, Echilus.
Timol.
Now it is night, why drag me here?

Ech.
Ah! come:
Thy mother thou shalt hear ...

Timol.
What shall I hear,
That I already know not?

Ech.
She would see thee;
To thee great tidings ...

Timol.
And thou darest perchance
With her unite now to deceive me?

Ech.
I?—
What I projected, thou this instant heardest.
But to save thee! And that is now accomplish'd.

Timol.
What sayest thou? Saved from whom? Explain thyself.

Ech.
Pardon, if one thing I concealed from thee.

Timol.
Ah! perhaps thou hast presumed? ...

Ech.
Be not offended.
Words so ambiguous from thy mother's lips
I erewhile heard; such insuppressive fear
For thee I witnessed in her trembling heart;
Her importunities were so excessive
That I should bring thee here, that, at all risks,
I was resolved to do it. On our colleagues
I feared some lofty danger was impending;
This I concealed from thee; I was too sure,
That if I told thee this, on no conditions,
I could detach thee from them.

Timol.
What sayest thou?
Darest thou to make this execrable dwelling
Thy shelter in an universal danger?
Oh! thou beginnest ill ...

Ech.
I will atone
By a more worthy end, I swear to thee,
For such beginning: but, I wished thee saved.

Timol.
Now, what then knowest thou? ...
What is the danger? ...

Ech.
Little with certainty I know; but all
I fear: and the audacious countenance
Of the secure Timophanes to this
Compelled me; and the evasive conscious aspect
Of the irresolute and trembling mother.
Those satellites of his, bribed by our gold,
That undertook to watch his stratagems,
And give us warning of them, are, at once,
Detected, and destroyed. None now remain
In whom we may confide. The place appointed
For our assembling likewise is discovered.

Timol.
—Oh fatal day! ... Oh apprehended day! ...
At last art thou arrived?—We are betrayed,
Assuredly betrayed ... Our fortitude,
Our patriotic constancy, to-day,
Must undergo a stubborn scrutiny.
We never were constrained, as we are now,
To prove the mettle of our ardent spirits;
And what is worse, we never were constrained,
As we are now, to practise artifice.

Ech.
I hastily dispatched to all our colleagues
The tidings, that, except with risk of life,
To-day, we could not meet. I think with pain
That, to a messenger perhaps insecure,
I gave the charge: but brevity of time,
And earnestness to rescue thee the first,
Made me incautious.

Timol.
Every man ere me
Thou should'st have rescued. And what better fate
Could crown my wishes? With my falling country,
I should have fallen: what wish I, but death?
Why save me? ... To what dire vicissitudes
Do I remain?

Ech.
Thou now art placed in safety;
And we should save our country. Let us now
Hear Demariste.

Timol.
—An accomplished tyrant
Already is Timophanes: to thwart
All schemes; to tyrannize o'er every soul;
As he is terrified, to terrify;
All, all, he knows—

Ech.
But yet he knows not how
To foresee all things.

Timol.
Desolate! ...

Ech.
He wills it;
Himself would have it so: of all my pity
He has divested me. Oh heaven! Who knows? ...
Perhaps now our faithful colleagues ...

Timol.
Two of them,
Two of the most courageous, at a distance,
Timœus and Orthagoras, I saw
Coming towards us: but I made to them
A signal to retreat.

Ech.
Thou erredst. Why
Did I not see them also!

Timol.
We suffice,
If we come here to death.

Ech.
We are too many,
If we are forced to an unwilling vengeance;
But, by their means, we might perchance have warned
Our other colleagues.

Timol.
Why hide aught from me?
'Twere best now to depart ...

Ech.
Some one approaches,
Or so it seems to me: hear'st thou?

Timol.
I hear it;
They are a lady's steps: perchance my mother ...

Ech.
'Tis she.